


Falling With Style

by resolute



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Short & Sweet, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resolute/pseuds/resolute
Summary: Lou is a very looking person.





	Falling With Style

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shirasade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirasade/gifts).



 

Falling With Style

 

Lou fell into the pillows when Daphne slid out from under the soft cotton sheets and walked, conspicuously naked, to the bathroom. "What's that look for?" Daphne asked, glancing back at Lou in the bed.

"No look," Lou said. It would take too much time to explain the roil of feelings and thoughts. Confirmation, that Lou isn't Daphne's first woman. Surprise, that she's a very considerate lover. Glee, that Daphne is responsive, and surprise, again, that it's not entirely a performance to her. But Daphne Kluger is, to Lou's approval, a very rewarding person to have sex with.

"There was a look," Daphne said, walking back with a bottle of water in her hand. "There was a look, and you had it, and it meant something, because all of your looks mean something." She sat on the bed and leaned in to kiss Lou. "You are a very  _ looking _ person." Lou kissed back. The kiss stopped Daphne's words.

***

Most people made a mistake; thinking Lou was the wild one. They saw the Mick-Jagger-David-Bowie-Patty-Smith fashion, they saw the motorcycle, they saw the nightclub, and they mistook it for rebellion, for living on the edge. Perhaps it had been rebellion once, back at St. Mary's at Ascot. And there had been just a touch of rebellion still during Lou's Berkeley days. But by the time Lou had drifted into New York's art scene it wasn't rebellion. It was expression. Lou knew who she was. She knew who she was meant to be. It made her, she knew, too predictable to be a really  _ legendary _ thief.

Debbie, though, Deb looked sweetheart-next-door, she looked classy when she dressed for it, she could look matronly when it was called for. Deb could be anything the job needed her to be. It made her unpredictable, wild like a spill of mercury on a glass table, changing every second according to influences and input too subtle and fragile for anyone else to detect. And completely unstoppable.

Deb had pulled at Lou from the moment they'd met. Lou had been in her wake ever since, tumbled through cons and schemes she never would have dared consider on her own. When Debbie had called, fresh out of prison, Lou had one night to continue to think of herself as steady, settled, a woman of business. By the time they pulled up outside of Lou's renovated warehouse, Lou felt the ground give way beneath her feet. This feeling was nostalgic, it was familiar, it was aggravating as hell.

It was falling.

It was falling, it was flying.

***

Lou walked out of her bedroom in silk shorts and a velour vest that still had yesterday's watch fob attached. The smell of coffee filled the common room. Debbie sat at the table. Her hair was up in back, messy and falling every which way, glasses slipping down her nose, two laptops and a pad of legal paper in front of her. Lou walked past her to get coffee. She noticed that Deb was wearing Lou's favorite Egyptian cotton pajamas. The ones with the fleur-de-lys print in garish day-glo colors. Lou sat at the table across from Debbie. She blew across the top of her mug of very hot coffee.

"Don't," Debbie said without looking up.

"Hmm?"

"Don't slouch at me. My robe is in your bathroom. I had to raid the clean laundry baskets."

" _ I _ didn't leave your robe in my bathroom."

Debbie waved one hand in vague dismissal. "Water under the bridge."

Lou sipped coffee, content. She got up and headed back to her room. Daphne stood in the doorway, a slight frown wrinkle between her eyebrows. As Lou pushed the door shut behind them, Daphne stole the mug of coffee from Lou's hand. "Like that. That's what I'm talking about."

Lou decided to rise to the bait. "Talking about what, again?"

Daphne sat on Lou's bed, leaning against the elaborately carved headboard. She swung her legs up and tucked her feet under the comforter. "That conversation. It's like a code, except the code isn't in the words. Or in the tone. It's … " Her eyes narrowed at Lou. "Did you ever take compulsory lessons in dance?"

The question caught Lou off guard. "Yes, at school." She sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed. It was not entirely clear, yet, what sort of conversation this was going to be, and she wanted her options open.

"You dance," Daphne said. "Between you and Debbie, half the conversation is in how you move around each other. With each other." Her face made a thoughtful moue, a look worth tens of thousands of dollars per second in feature films. " _ At _ each other? Sometimes you definitely move  _ at _ each other. But I think it's usually  _ with _ ." She sipped loudly, ostentatiously, from Lou's coffee, waiting for a reply.

The silence began to hem Lou in. "I don't know what to say to that."

Daphne's eyes widened, a practiced maneuver that Lou had come to understand was genuine more than she'd initially thought. "Oh, sweetie, I'm not jealous! Not of  _ Debbie _ ."  She leaned forward and patted Lou's knee, handing over the remaining, cooling, coffee. "That would be stupid. Like being jealous of gravity. I know gravity when I see it, and I try to make a practice of not being stupid."

"Debbie's not gravity," Lou said. She met and held Daphne's gaze. "She's .. not gravity. Gravity pulls people down."

Daphne smiled, not looking away. She crawled forward, towards Lou's silk-clad legs. "Whatever. Forces of nature. I don't fight them."

"I don't know what to say to that, either," Lou said. Her hands fit around Daphne's waist. She pulled the other woman closer.

"Time to stop talking anyway," Daphne murmured.

***

Debbie hadn't fought with Lou about the bingo hall jobs. Lou remembers not-fighting about it. She remembers not-fighting over every meal. How Debbie had stared at Lou over her beer, then looked away slowly, like a cat, when Lou caught her eye. There hadn't been any fighting because there hadn't been any talking. But Lou still understood. She could read Debbie's face, eyes, and body as well as Debbie could read hers.  _ This isn't enough, _ Debbie said.  _ You're not bold enough, _ she said.  _ You're holding me back, _ she said. And Lou replied with something that was  _ yes _ , and  _ no _ , and  _ it's complicated _ , and they continued to not-fight about it all through a New York City winter.

But the con, the con had continued to work. It was smooth as glass, predictable and perfect. While sitting in a succession of dingy, overly-bright, desperate bingo halls, each with their unique odors of frustrated decrepitude, Lou felt close to Debbie. And she knew that whatever else was wrong, Deb felt it too.

But the quiet consummation of the con hadn't been enough for Deb. And before Lou really grasped exactly how far her partner had strayed, Debbie Ocean was doing time on behalf of some condescending prick.

***

Daphne let it go, for a week. The topic of Lou and Debbie. "It's not sex," she said over a dinner the three of them shared.

"No, it's palak paneer," Debbie said, spooning more of the dish onto her plate.

"Please." Daphne pointed at Debbie with the hand holding her wine. "Don't quip at me." She set the glass down and leaned forward, elbows on the table. The move showed off her cleavage to excellent advantage. Lou knew that Daphne knew just how good she looked, sitting like that. "Lou won't explain it to me, so maybe you will."

"Explain what?" Debbie asked. "Sex?" She glanced at Lou, a flash, barely noticeable. Debbie was playing with Daphne.

"Explain what's between you two," Daphne said. "It's not sex. I mean, I don't mean you have had sex, and I don't mean you haven't. I mean, sex isn't relevant to your relationship."

Debbie shrugged, looking directly at Lou. Lou rolled her eyes and felt her mouth twitch into a smile. Daphne was right. They had slept together, had sex, a few times, early on. Lou had mistaken Debbie's pull on her for one of body. Debbie hadn't minded. The sex had been good, considering. Though she had mentioned more than once that every woman needed to try it, just to see. Which should have been a hint that her heart wasn't in it.

Lou had been confused when the sex hadn't broken the spell of Debbie's magnetism. It really should have. Sex broke nearly every mystique. But it hadn't, so they agreed that this was silly, and continued to work and live together.

"You are correct," Debbie said, her eyes confirming that Lou was okay with this conversation. "Sex is not relevant to our relationship."

"So what is it?" Daphne finished her glass of wine and poured another. "I'm telling you, it's driving me crazy, not figuring it out. Most people," she added, "are transparent. Easy to figure. But you two?" She shook her head, looking back and forth between Lou and Debbie. "Maddening, it what it is."

***

When they argued before the Met Gala, Lou couldn't discern the difference between her fear and her anger. Claude-fucking-Becker, again, and Debbie could not just Let. Him. Go.

To an outside observer the argument about Claude probably looked like jealousy or competition. Lou wasn't jealous, had never been jealous. What she couldn't articulate at the time and only later found words for was the danger Becker posed to Debbie. Debbie was motion, mercury, flight, momentum. Becker was a cul-de-sac, an Escher water-mill. All of Debbie poured into him and was lost. Never emerging out the other side, never propelling her further, faster, higher. The more Debbie tried to push towards him the farther she ran into his trap. Not that he intended to trap her, no -- Lou never credited him with that much intelligence. But he was a trap, nonetheless, for Debbie.

What Debbie needed in her life was someone who looked at her and saw how incredible her ambition and skill were. How far her intellect and creativity would take her. Debbie needed a mirror that reflected all flaws but also revealed glorious possibility.

She needed to see where she wanted to go, and then she took herself there.

***

Debbie poured the last of the wine into her glass. Lou looked away from Debbie to see Daphne rolling her eyes. Lou smiled. "Fine. What did you call me last week? A looker?"

"I said you were a very  _ looking _ person," Daphne replied.

"I don't want to know," Debbie said.  _ Are you okay, _ the eyebrows said,  _ is Daphne a problem, _ a shift of the shoulders.

Lou tried to not turn to see Debbie and failed. She shrugged. "Daphne," she said to Debbie, "said you were like gravity. A force of nature."  _ It's funny, what you choose to worry about. _

"Gravity?"  _ Is she a problem? _

"I told her you weren't gravity."  _ No. _

"And what force of nature am I?" Debbie's mouth was smiling, but her eyes were not.  _ And what am I, then? What am I to you? What does she see? Do you see it too? _

Lou leaned back. She smirked.  _ We are fine. You and me. She sees it, that's all. We're good. _

Daphne had a point, Lou admitted to herself. She and Debbie did hold entire conversations without words. "A storm," she said.  _ Wind, motion, a great tearing force. Change. Movement. Falling. You take me with you. Flight. _

"Huh." Debbie finished her wine. She nodded once.  _ I love you, too. _

"A storm?" Daphne watched them both, waiting. "Is anyone going to explain that to me?"

"Probably not," Debbie replied. She stood and carried her dishes over to the kitchen. "But you can try to convince Lou to tell you." She headed for the stairs. "Goodnight, ladies. Have fun."

Lou watched Debbie leave the room. She turned to face Daphne.

"I don't think you'll tell me," Daphne said. She shrugged. "But I plan to enjoy making you talk."

Lou stood and held out her hand. Daphne took it. "Well.  Let's see you try."


End file.
